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The river was not high, so there was not more than a two or three mile current. Hardly a word was
said during the next three-quarters of an hour. Now the raft was passing before the distant town. Two or three glimmering lights showed where it lay, peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of star-gemmed water, unconscious of the tremendous event that was happening.

The river was not high, so there was not more than a two or three mile current. Hardly a word was
said during the next three-quarters of an hour. Now the raft was passing before the distant town. Two or three glimmering lights showed where it lay, peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of star-gemmed water, unconscious of the tremendous event that was happening.

The Black Avenger stood still with folded arms, "looking his last" upon

the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing

"she" could see him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death with dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips. It was but a small strain on his imagination to remove Jackson Island

beyond eyeshot of the village, and so he “looked his last” with a

broken and satisfied heart. The other pirates were looking their last

too; and they all looked so long that they came near letting the

current drift them out of the range of the island. But they discovered the danger in time, and made shift to avert it. About two oclock in the morning the raft grounded on the bar two hundred yards above the head of the island, and they waded back and forth until they had landed their freight.

The wide opens spaces, accommodating inns and restaurants, and the echoes of Gram Parsons draw them to the desert each year. But during this visit, a lively 3-year-old is in the mix.

Reporting from Twentynine Palms – Typically, we go to the desert at least once a year. We love the expansive space, several of the inns and restaurants and, of course, the otherworldly foliage of Joshua Tree National Park. We also enjoy the musical legacy of Gram Parsons, the former Byrd who overdosed in Joshua Tree in 1973, at age 26, after virtually inventing the alt-country movement that would blossom two decades later. We feel these echoes and others – the twangy music, the lands natural contours, the local cuisine – when were there.
But this year, my wife, Sara – a former music journalist – and I had one complication: our eager but mischievous son. Ian is no more difficult than the typical 3-year-old boy, but he loves life so unambiguously that he can be hard to corral. Traveling with a toddler is a whole different ballgame: We figured some things would be better, some things worse, but we did know quite how it would all work out.

MANCHESTER, Tenn. – In a warehouse next to his home, David Pennington, the mayor of Coffee County, stores enough pop-culture memorabilia to make a lesser collector gasp. There are entire walls of Gene Autry items, faded Coca-Cola signs hanging from the ceilings and rare baseball cards in a glass display case. Stashed throughout are reams of posters, tickets and magazine clippings for the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which begins its ninth season on Thursday and is the pride of this bucolic small city in central Tennessee.
Especially dear to his heart is an unused ticket to Woodstock in 1969. Mr. Pennington, 60, keeps it to commemorate the trip he canceled to take care of his young family. But it also represents Bonnaroo´s dual ambitions: to be a cultural touchstone known around the world, yet – unlike Woodstock – to be efficiently run, with smoothly flowing Interstate traffic. The festival found fame at the start, but after a traffic-clogged first couple of years, many people here say the goal of efficiency has largely been achieved.

"They´ve got it down to a science," said Mr. Pennington, who also owns a restaurant offering a rather more congestive Bonnaroo Burger, topped with an egg and two slices of bacon. "They´ve got a traffic person that knows just what they´re doing. They get those people in, and everybody around here just operates as usual. You don´t even know they´re out there. You´ll see."

This year Bonnaroo will feature more than 100 acts through Sunday, among them the Dave Matthews Band, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Norah Jones and Kings of Leon. Past Bonnaroos have attracted up to 90,000 fans; although it has not yet sold out this year, more than 75,000 people are expected, according to Ashley Capps, one of the promoters. Tickets for the full weekend are $250. From Friday to Sunday both YouTube and the NPR Music Web site will be streaming performances.

Such big numbers usually lead to traffic nightmares, which is just what happened in Bonnaroo´s first year, 2002. Festival organizers warned officials about a tide of tens of thousands of cars. But since a previous festival, Itchycoo Park, had been a flop, and Bonnaroo´s marketing and ticket sales had all been online, with no traditional advertising, no one in town took its claims seriously. "Bonnaroo gave us fair warning, and we just laughed at them," Mr. Pennington said.

Since then the festival has worked out an extensive traffic plan with the state and local police, involving a temporary exit and dedicated festival lanes on Interstate 24, as well as a helicopter to guide the parking staff on the ground. "We got it down," said Steve Graves, the sheriff of Coffee County, which includes Manchester and has a population of about 52,000.

A 2005 study by two professors at the Middle Tennessee State University found that Bonnaroo contributed about $18 million to the local economy, and Mr. Pennington estimates that since then it has grown to more than $20 million. Signs welcoming Bonnaroo fans hang in stores throughout Manchester, and tie-dyed Bonnaroo T-shirts can be spotted underneath waitresses´ aprons and Wal-Mart clerks´ uniforms.

Three years ago Bonnaroo´s promoters bought most of the land on the site, a former farm, and they plan to stage more events there during the 361 non-Bonnaroo days of the year. Mr. Pennington said he hopes they will serve as an anchor to attract more music-related businesses to the area.

"I see the music industry as something we can tap into here in Manchester," he said. "The recording artists, the recording studios, the songwriters. Not as big as Nashville, obviously, but that´s the new industry that we want here. And with Bonnaroo here, that makes a difference."

Mr. Capps, the promoter, said that Bonnaroo´s biggest challenge is maintaining a strong identity in the face of competition from other festivals around the country, like Lollapalooza in Chicago and Coachella in Southern California. They, as well as many other smaller but still significant events, are all bidding for the same acts and trying to attract out-of-town fans.

"It´s something that we´re conscious of every year," Mr. Capps said. "How do we maintain the thread and be true to the core of what the Bonnaroo experience is without repeating ourselves year after year after year?"

Bonnaroo´s core might have as much to do with its audience as the music. The festival grew out of the post-hippie jam-band scene, which has traditionally been an open-minded, loyal and not terribly fickle audience: an ideal constituency for an annual festival that relies on repeat customers. Over the years Bonnaroo has served as a kind of training ground for bands to return again and again, to ever bigger crowds. Kings of Leon, for example, has played there three times before.

By Tuesday evening the pilgrims had begun to arrive in Manchester, with drum circles forming in the Wal-Mart parking lot and teams of dreadlocked, flip-flop-wearing fans taking turns going in the store to stock up on beer, comfort food and rubber boots. (The weather forecast called for plenty of rain.)

Steve Willis, a 59-year-old mail carrier from Manchester, shopping at the Wal-Mart, praised the festival and local authorities for keeping the traffic flowing as well as can be done. The roads, although slow at the beginning and end of the festival, are navigable. "It´s kind of hard to get around some times," he said. "It´s a little bit of a hindrance, but it´s not a big deal."

His wife, Donna, 54, looked out over the Wal-Mart parking lot as the sun went down.

"I think it´s wonderful," she said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 11, 2010

Because of an editing error, the byline for an article on Thursday about the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival was omitted. The article was by Ben Sisario.

You might not think of Le Poisson Rouge as the ideal place for an organ recital: for one thing, it lacks an organ. But an organist can bring a portable one, and that is what Cameron Carpenter did on Tuesday evening, though not without some backstage drama.Mr. Carpenters original plan was to use his own practice organ and celebrate the release of his new compact disc and DVD, "Cameron Live!" (Telarc), by performing works of Bach, Shostakovich, Liszt, Chopin and Moszkowski. But a few days before the performance he decided that his instrument was not flexible enough for recital use.

His solution was odd. He rented a Hammond B3: an organ favored by jazz musicians (and some 1960s rock bands) but not ideal, in timbre and range, for classical works. So out went the classics, for the most part. Instead Mr. Carpenter brought along a drummer, Marion Felder, a recent Juilliard graduate who performs with the Count Basie Orchestra, and played a freewheeling, virtuosic jazz set.

That the concert now had little to do with the recording it was meant to promote seemed not to matter to anyone, least of all Mr. Carpenter, who spent the hour before the performance milling through the crowd, stopping at every table in the club to introduce himself ("Hi, I am Cameron," he said, holding out a hand) and chat. This was his party, and he was determined to enjoy every minute it. You almost had the feeling that he would have brought you a beer on request. At curtain time he threw a jacket studded with small mirrors over his black T-shirt and took to the keys.

It was clear in Mr. Carpenters opening selection, a rhythmically supple account of Coltranes "Moments Notice," that he had a feeling for this music. That should not be surprising: organists, unlike most classical instrumentalists, are schooled in improvisation, and Mr. Carpenter has an extroverted performing style well suited to the business of finding the possibilities in a chord progression or a melody.

Most of his set was devoted to Gershwin songs, starting with "Love Is Here to Stay," in which he augmented the Hammond sound with the varied timbres of a Yamaha synthesizer, and "I Got Rhythm," which he played as a widely ranging set of variations (including one for pedals only). "Do It Again," "The Man I Love," "Fascinatin´ Rhythm" and "Nice Work if You Can Get It," and Henry Mancini´s "Whistling Away the Dark," were also dissected and reassembled with unpredictable metrical and coloristic twists.

Mr. Carpenter´s single straightforward classical performance, late in the set, helped to explain his decision to play jazz. His reading of Bach chorale prelude "Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland" had the right impulses, but the organs tone did not suit the piece. In any case, Mr. Carpenter had a more interesting approach to the classics up his sleeve. In a pair of Bach "Well-Tempered Clavier" preludes and fugues, and in Chopins C sharp minor Etude , he moved back and forth between straightforward readings and, with Mr. Felders support, vital, spirited, inventively reharmonized elaborations.

Was this a crossover concert? Maybe. But Mr. Carpenters jazz performances do not require special pleading. Move over, Renee Fleming.

N extraordinary amount of jazz hits New York over the next two weeks: four festivals, about 150 sets, and much of it extracurricular to the usual riches at the clubs. It´s a time of marathons and breadth and goes in heavy for the new: not just youth, but also new aesthetic combinations, new attitudes toward repertory, new influences and paradigms, new clubs and theaters. Unlike some past jazz festival seasons, with more brand-polishing and sentimental favorites, this one – in the aggregate – can really show you where both the music and the culture of jazz in New York have gotten to. The news releases plonked into e-mailboxes throughout the spring. First to announce a schedule was the old-school jazz promoter George Wein. After the exit of JVC as his regular sponsor, he returns this year with the first annual CareFusion Jazz Festival, named after the medical technology company that is writing its checks. It´s a mixture: typical JVC-esque big-hall bookings (Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Joao Gilberto); carefully chosen smaller shows with some of the best younger bandleaders, including Ambrose Akinmusire and Darcy James Argue; and a few gigs for early and swing-era jazz fans.Next, the 15th Vision Festival, an event planned and run community-style, with minimum sponsorship and maximum input from musicians, by Patricia Parker; it´s built around the lineage of free improvisation and jazz´s nonmainstream. This year´s festival is half again as big as last year´s. It contains an evening devoted to the Chicago pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and his circle and gigs by the local scene´s veterans, including the saxophonists Charles Gayle and David S. Ware, as well as the improvising singer Fay Victor, the scholarly and freewheeling Chicago-based quintet People, Places & Things and the rock band Akron/Family. The shows spread through the Lower East Side: clubs, cultural centers, even the playground of the Campos Plaza housing development on East 13th Street. Then came news of the first Undead Jazzfest, two nights of hear-a-thons in clubs on a stretch of Bleecker and Sullivan Streets, this Saturday and Sunday. It occupies, roughly, the middle path between Vision Festival and CareFusion: heavy on neither free improvisation nor the mainstream-jazz continuum.

Its the sound of the adventurous present, including the drummer and composer John Hollenbeck, the saxophonist Steve Coleman, and Fight the Big Bull, a roustabout little big band from Richmond, Va. It´s produced by Brice Rosenbloom and Adam Schatz, who are doing much to expand, diversify and generally excite the New York jazz audience through their annual Winter Jazzfest.

Mad Men star and internet favorite January Jones is about to become even favoritor because this morning at 10:30am she came crawling back home in the same dress she wore last night to the Oceana World Oceans Day Party. Does this mean she hooked up with some random guy or girl and had a night of deviant sex? Yes, yes it does. It´s undeniable proof. Throw an Ocean Day party and watch the panties start droppin, apparently. It sure as hell got January all worked up. I´m gonna go to her house dressed as Poseidon, see if I can get anal.

HOLLYWOOD, CA-The actress from the big hit movie and the musician from the popular band who have been photographed many times together out on the town are getting married, entertainment industry sources reported Monday.

I love him, the actress, who has been seen sporting a huge diamond engagement ring recently, told reporters while walking down the red carpet. He is definitely the one. The wedding, which will take place this summer, is expected to be attended by many equally famous celebrities, and will be photographed by many paparazzi, via helicopter if necessary. Insiders expect the guest list to be a veritable who is who of the rich and famous, including the Hollywood director, the reclusive former star who rarely makes public appearances, and the very handsome actor who used to be on television but is now in movies. According to sources, the wedding between the actress and the musician will be the most important social event of the season.

Its going to take place on a tropical island owned by the couples super-rich friend, said the blonde entertainment reporter. And her dress will be created by the fashion designer who did all those Oscar gowns.

BOSTON – The fashionable "Beat L.A." chants had all but faded from TD Garden, the oxygen bled from the building by Ray Allen´s misfires, Kobe Bryant´s impossible jumpers and Derek Fisher´s intensity. An anxious air hung over the Boston Celtics on Thursday as they teetered on the edge of a heavy series deficit.

Then Glen Davis rumbled and shimmied, Nate Robinson bounced and bellowed and belief was restored. The crowd thundered anew – "Beat L.A.!" – and the Celtics bullied their way to a 96-89 victory over the Lakers, tying the N.B.A. finals at 2-2.

It was an unusual victory, built on the backs of the Celtics reserves, most prominently Davis, the hefty center, and Robinson, the diminutive guard. They suffocated the Lakers with boundless energy, combining for 15 points in the fourth quarter and propelling the Celtics to a permanent lead.

"I do not think that what we did today was really in the scouting report," Davis said. "A lot of things that we did was just will and determination and seizing the moment."

And a lot of things were just plain unusual, such as Davis doing a little shimmy after a big free throw, or celebrating a play so enthusiastically that drool spilled from his mouth. The image was captured by the network cameras, to the great amusement of his teammates.

"When you´re in the moment, you´re in the moment," the playful Davis said. "If I slobber, snot, spit, please excuse me. Kids, don´t do that. Have manners and things like that. Sorry about that. Did I catch you with some?"

Davis was free to roam the paint in part because Andrew Bynum, the Lakers´ long-limbed center, was forced out by a nagging knee injury. He played just 12 minutes, raising doubts about his availability.

Bynum´s absence "bothered us in the second half," Coach Phil Jackson said, but the Lakers are hopeful that he can return on Sunday for Game 5, after a two-day break. The series will return to Los Angeles for Game 6 and a possible Game 7.

The Celtics´ Rasheed Wallace left the game late in the fourth quarter after aggravating a back injury. He also picked up his sixth technical foul of the postseason, one shy of the limit. Another technical foul would trigger an automatic suspension. The Celtics´ Kendrick Perkins is in the same predicament.

On a difficult night for the Celtics´ starters, Coach Doc Rivers turned to Davis, Robinson, Wallace and Tony Allen, who joined Ray Allen to open the fourth quarter. They promptly turned a 2-point deficit into a 9-point lead.

Paul Pierce, who had been quiet for much of the night, secured the victory with 7 points in the final 2 minutes 17 seconds and finished with 19.

The Lakers, looking exhausted and frazzled, could not keep pace. Bryant, finding scant help, kept launching difficult jumpers, going 10 for 22 from the field, finishing with 33 points. He had to do most of his work on the perimeter, going 6 for 11 from the 3-point arc. He also had 7 turnovers.

"He was tired," Jackson said. "Physically, I thought he had to work too hard in the course of the game, and he couldn´t finish it out the way he wanted to finish it out."

The Lakers pulled within 6 points four times down the stretch, mostly on Bryant´s efforts, but Pierce responded each time. They finally got within 5 points on a meaningless Bryant 3-pointer with 11 seconds left.

Derek Fisher, the Lakers´ savior in Game 3, spent much of Thursday night on the bench with foul trouble.

The Celtics thoroughly dominated the boards, 41-34, and pulled down 16 offensive rebounds, leading to 20 second-chance points. Davis powered through repeatedly for putbacks and layups.

Emotions flared in the fourth quarter. After Lamar Odom knocked Robinson to the floor with a hard foul, Robinson leaped up and went nose to chest with Odom, drawing a technical. Wallace, who had drawn a technical foul a minute earlier, started berating the officials, and Rivers quickly called a timeout to calm everyone´s nerves.

"Somehow, we´re going to have to keep our composure," Rivers said.

Robinson played the first 9:09 of the fourth quarter, in place of the ineffective Rajon Rondo (10 points), and made several big plays, including a runner in the lane that gave the Celtics an 83-74 lead. Davis hit a pair of free throws to make it an 11-point lead.

Ray Allen, who missed all 13 of his shots in Game 3 bounced back slightly with 12 points. After going four days and nearly 61 minutes of basketball between field goals, Allen finally found the net, converting a fast-break layup a minute after tipoff. That ended an 0-for-16 streak that began in the fourth quarter of Game 2. When he landed, Allen clenched both fists in quiet celebration.

Allen missed his next five shots, starting with an errant a 3-pointer that had 18,624 people exclaiming "awwww" in unison. That left him 1 for his last 21. He did not make another field goal until late in the third quarter, hitting a 20-footer that drew the loudest ovation of the night and tied the score at 56-56.

Davis and Allen provided all the points in a 17-8 run that bridged the third and fourth quarters and wiped out the Lakers´ lead for good.

Then the celebrations began, with Davis whooping and the 5-foot 9-inch Robinson at one point leaping onto his broad back.

"You were on my back?" Davis said to Robinson, as they sat side by side on the interview podium.

"You didn´t even notice," Robinson said. "We are like Shrek and Donkey. You can´t separate us."

Everyone laughed and Davis concluded, "You should not have let us two get up here."

Watching England warm up today, there was a overriding feeling that something was missing.

It was an eager Labrador of a player, whose spindly legs invariably protrude from a pair of shorts as he bats, bowls and fields with the sprightliness of someone 10 years younger, encourages players in his Geordie twang and makes the odd self-deprecating remark to a passing hack. I am talking of course of Paul Collingwood.Collingwood is the heart and soul of the England team, someone for whom nothing is too much trouble, who will stoically bowl in the nets when all the other players have dragged their enormous kit bags back to the dressing room, and linger afterwards for extra slip catching practice to the slow bowlers or a bit of throwing at a stump. He is never knowingly underprepared.

That is why it is right to give him a rest for this match and presumably series. He has nothing to prove and quite a lot to lose. His body is willing but his mind will be running on empty. After the exertions of the last 12 months, he will have been existing on adrenalin during the world T20. Now back in the real world he will need the nourishment of a bit of time off to rejuvenate his cricketing appetite.

There will be those who say that a month of his exertion was spent in sole self-advancement at the IPL. But his time in India wasn´t without benefit for England. He spoke before he went of the positive influences and sharing of ideas that involvement in the IPL brings, and the development of a different mindset it imbues. In short it banishes fearlessness, which, in a T20 match, translates as not worrying about losing your wicket. It was the hallmark of England´s approach and the reason they won their first world title. Keeping the scoreboard moving was more important than keeping your wicket intact. It´s a big step for naturally cautious, technique-obsessed English players to take. As a result of Collingwood, and Andy Flower´s input, they took it and it paid off. Even Kevin Pietersen reaped the benefit.

For the past eight years, a first-round defeat for Alex Bogdanovic at Wimbledon has been as much a part of the summer season as Royal Ascot or Henley, yet when the All England Club announced their first batch of wild cards for this summers Championships, the highest ranked Briton after Andy Murray was not on the list. Bogdanovic, who is ranked 166 in the world, has had eight wild cards in the past, and every time he has been unable to make the second round. The only other man to have registered eight defeats from eight appearances at the grass-court slam is Patricio Cornejo, a Chilean who played in the 1960s and 1970s.Five of the eight wild cards for the main draw of the men´s tournament were announced on Monday. Jamie Baker, the British No 3, has been given one, as have Russians Teimuraz Gabashvili and Andrey Kuznetsov, Nicholas Kiefer, of Germany, and Japan´s Kei Nishikori. If Bogdanovic does not receive one of the remaining three, he will have to enter the qualifying competition if he is to make a ninth attempt at winning at Wimbledon. If Bogdanovic was also feeling a bit unloved at Queen´s, you could hardly blame him, as he did not receive a wild card into the pre-Wimbledon AEGON Championships.

To make the main draw, Bogdanovic had come through three rounds of the qualifying competition. His opponent, Grigor Dimitrov, meanwhile, was given a wild card. By taking the first set 6-4 against the Bulgarian teenager and a former junior Wimbledon champion, Bogdanovic had already performed better than the two British players who had been given a wild card at Queen´s, as Baker lost 6-1, 6-4 to Uzbekistan´s Denis Istomin and James Ward was beaten 6-3, 7-5 by Robby Ginepri, of the United States. Rain forced the suspension of play with the scores 6-4, 3-6 and with British No 2 Bogdanovic 2-1 ahead in the third set which had gone with service. If he loses that third set against Dimitrov, Murray will be the only British player left in the singles tournament.